Wakefield Reads... Our Town Leane Ellis, reference librarian at the Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, helped develop a "Community Reads" project for the town of Wakefield, Massachusetts, and described the experience as one of the most rewarding of her career. Below is an account of her experience as she and her colleagues launched the first annual "Wakefield Reads..." campaign, which focused on the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder. For a brief background on Our Town, see Discussion Questions & Activities: Our Town. (For more detailed information, see the Our Town Teacher's Guide.) Why Start a "Community Reads" Campaign? When Chicago did a citywide read of To Kill a Mockingbird in the summer of 2001, they received a great deal of press and it inspired us to give it a try. We thought a "Community Reads" campaign embodied our library's mission. The campaign introduced innovative programming to the library that gave a common focus to the community; it placed an emphasis on reading; and it brought diverse groups of people together to share common thoughts or new outlooks. Why Our Town? The events of September 11, 2001, and some unsettling crimes at a local business inspired us to choose Thornton Wilder's Our Town as the first "Wakefield Reads..." title. We thought the play's simple themes of love, family, and being present in each moment of our lives would be embraced by the community. Wakefield Reads... Our Town In October 2001, a committee of librarians agreed to oversee and plan the programming for "Wakefield Reads..." We decided to arrange a series of discussion groups and special events to take place over a two-month period starting in January 2002. We created a calendar with deadlines for each facet of the project and partnered with a local public relations professional to assist us with publicity. We took black-and-white photographs of the local fire department, high school band, football team, and library staff to use on posters, emphasizing the "our town" theme. A staff member photographed the town bandstand overlooking our Lake Quannapowitt, which became the image for the buttons that promoted the program. Whenever a patron checked out the book, they also received a bookmark listing upcoming events and a Reader's Guide. We encouraged readers to check out the film versions of the play (the 1977 version starring Hal Holbrook and the 1989 version with Spalding Gray) that were available in our videotape collection. Library staff wrote articles for local newspapers and we created banners for Main Street. Funding and volunteer support came from The Friends of the Beebe Library, which also solicited donations from area businesses. Our library director, Sharon Gilley, invited the high school English department to participate. The library gave each member of the 11th grade a copy of Our Town and almost all of the English teachers opted to teach the play. To make our first "Wakefield Reads..." an intergenerational experience for families and the community, the library planned major events to attract all age groups. We kicked off the program in January with an ice cream social and an old-fashioned Sing-Along on a Saturday afternoon. Over the month of February, the library scheduled multiple book discussions to accommodate a variety of schedules. Librarians offered training sessions for book discussion leaders from community and private book discussion groups, in addition to research materials on the author and the play. We ended our "Wakefield Reads..." festivities with a Friday night potluck supper in March. All of these events were held in the library's building. The library also showed a videotape version of Our Town several times, and hosted an informal reading of excerpts by patrons. The Youth Room held story hours with an Our Town flavor, such as a program on inventors featuring Cyrus Wakefield, the founder of Wakefield. They also held walks through historic sections of Wakefield and town trivia contests during school vacation. A major event in the "Wakefield Reads... Our Town" program was a book discussion group that was televised on a local cable station in March and several times the following month. Library staff invited a variety of patrons and other people from the community (including members of the high school's junior class) to participate in the group. The twelve people who shared this experience had a lively and thoughtful exchange of ideas. "Wakefield Reads... Our Town" proved to be a wonderful outlet for positive civic energies. The experience was invigorating for both the library and the community, inspiring community cooperation and team spirit. The library hopes to continue "Wakefield Reads..." every year with a new title. 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